Antigua
— — a beach for every day of the year.
Not only on a wall.
“An island people return to for the water. Antigua sits at the top of the Leeward chain, ringed by a coastline so cut and folded the local count of beaches comes to 365. English Harbour holds the old dockyard where Nelson once worked the West Indies station, the buildings still in use, the rigging lofts still standing. Above it Shirley Heights catches the trade winds and the long view west. The colour the studio reaches for is the shallow green over white sand, the kind that goes turquoise about an hour before the sun drops.
Antigua, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Antigua is the larger of the two main islands of Antigua and Barbuda, a sovereign state in the eastern Caribbean. The island covers roughly 281 square kilometres and sits about 400 kilometres east-southeast of Puerto Rico, at the northern end of the Leeward Islands. The capital, St. John's, lies on the northwest coast and holds most of the population of around 100,000. The terrain is mostly low limestone and coral, with Boggy Peak (Mount Obama) the highest point at 402 metres. The coastline is the defining feature: deeply indented, with bays, coves, and the protected natural harbour at English Harbour on the south coast.
Nelson's Dockyard, on the south coast at English Harbour, is the only continuously working Georgian-era naval dockyard in the world. The British Royal Navy built it through the 18th century to careen and refit ships of the West Indies fleet, and Horatio Nelson commanded the station here from 1784 to 1787. The stone capstans, the pillars of the old sail loft, and the officers' quarters all survive. UNESCO inscribed the dockyard and its surrounding fortifications as a World Heritage Site in 2016, citing the integrity of the Georgian ensemble and its layered fortifications above the harbour.
The dry season runs roughly December through April, with steady northeast trade winds and little rain; the wet and hurricane season runs June through November, peaking in September. Most visitors arrive by air at V. C. Bird International, ten minutes northeast of St. John's, or by cruise into the deepwater port at Heritage Quay. Sailing Week, held the last week of April out of English Harbour, has run since 1968 and draws crews from across the Atlantic. Shirley Heights on Sunday afternoons is the long-standing local gathering above the harbour, with steel pan as the sun goes down.